Posted
by
kdawson
on Friday June 18, 2010 @10:45AM
from the chatting-amongst-themselves dept.

Stoobalou writes with a story that got started earlier this month when iPhone users in the US and the UK noticed that their phones seemed to be sending large data bursts via 3G overnight. (Providers are ending unlimited contracts, so iPhone users are paying more attention to how much data they are using.) The discussions began on MacOSRumors and an Apple discussion forum. Thinq.co.uk makes this guess as to what is going on, but doesn't offer much in the way of substantiation: "The simple fact of the matter is — as far as we can tell — that the iPhone's push notifications and other small transfers of data are totted up throughout the day and the total for all of those notifications is added up after dark and sent to your airtime provider while your phone is sleeping. If these tiny amounts of data were individually listed your bill would probably be the size of a telephone directory. The reason it is using the 3G network rather than Wi-Fi is that all iPhones up to and including the 3Gs turn off Wi-Fi push functionality while the phone is in sleep mode, in order to preserve battery life. The iPhone 4, incidentally, has better power management so will not need to do this."

I have automatic notifications turned off and a few other settings and yet my 3GS battery will go down more than half during the day without any usage. Come on, an iPad has 30 days standby - and while I understand a phone always has to be listening, it seems awfully short.

We have about 150 iPhones for corporate use and we have had to return 8 so far because of bad battery life. We have had more reports of deteriorating battery life from approx. 25 more users that doing a full restore to the phone and NOT applying the backup, just rebuilding the phone manually, has resolved their battery life back to original capacity.

The key is not to restore the backup created immediately before the restore in iTunes. Even though all of the push and antenna settings are set correctly, there is still something in the OS that makes the battery drain.

The worst one I've seen so far would drain 8% every 5 minutes; you could literally watch the battery percentage count down like a timer. Doing a restore of the OS fixed it.

Sonds like the firmware got corrupted. My wife took her 3GS (1 year old to the day) in to the apple store last night. A tech looked at it, found it reported ~8 hours of battery life but 700 days of standby time. Obviously this was not right, found the firmware was corrupted and asked if she would permit a wipe and restore. Apparently this caused some errors in the back and a few min later he came back with a new phone for her.

As it was the last day of the included warranty it only cost us a few minutes of o

If it's just listening then what difference does it make if it is in a fringe area. It could be in a faraday cage in an underground lab in a crater on the dark side of a moon on the far side of Jupiter, it would still take the same amount of power to listen for a signal as if it were strapped to the cell tower with duct tape. The power it takes to run a receiver is independent from the power of the transmitter.

Yes, but it's not just listening. It has to send the tower a keep-alive so the network knows where you are, and calls can be routed to the right tower. Otherwise every cell tower on earth would have to individually broadcast every call made, and wait for a phone, somewhere, to respond.

Plus, carriers gotta be able to charge you through the nose for "roaming" just because your phone is powered on in their airspace:p

...but even so, the cell phone would still shout "Marco" at regular intervals regardless of how many towers say "Polo". Unless this heartbeat signal is a two way handshake affair with error corrective repeats, just sending a heartbeat signal would still be a linear power drain relative to distance from the tower.

Except it shouts "Marco", then expects to hear "Polo" back. If it gets the response, great. Otherwise, it can increase power and try again. It will repeat this until it gets a signal or hits its maximum strength, and gives up.

I know my phone drains much faster when I'm in a poor reception area than when I've got a good signal.

This is true. And it's actually a battery saving technique. The phone will attempt to transmit and make a connection with the weakest possible transmission power possible. If that fails, then it kicks up the power and tries again.

In the well covered areas, it doesn't take a lot of power to hit a cell phone tower. So the amount of power needed to stay in contact is minimal. In a weak signal area, it takes more power to maintain that contact, which is why the battery drains faster. Also, in weak signal areas, the signal tends to be lost completely often. When that happens, the phone will wake up and start searching for a new tower using the previously described ramp-up method. It will keep attempting that every minute or so until it finds a tower.

Your phone doesn't passively respond to the cell network. There is always some communication going between the phone and closest tower. If your signal is weak, your phone will use more power looking for one than if the signal is strong.

Theoretically you are probably right but not in practice - I have personal experience (warning N-size one story coming up): My folks live up in a remote area where there is no cell service. If you take a cell phone up there and leave it on, the battery will get drained very rapidly (~ 8 hours). I think it's probably b/c it's hearing very distance signals and trying to connect and failing at max transmit power again and again. If you turn the radio off of course the power drain becomes very slow. Once you dr

If you are extremely worried about this, just put your device into "airplane mode" before putting it to sleep. It won't try to talk to anything at all.

If you're only slightly worried about it, well, OS4 has an option to disable using the cellular connection for data at all, forcing all data over wifi but still leaving the ability to receive SMS and phone calls on. (OS4 brings more tools for managing your bandwidth use than previous releases ever had.)

The whole point of a phone is NOT to alert people of rare but important emergencies. The point of the phone is to communicate. I really dont understand people who simply CANNOT be away from a phone. Honestly, what percentage of phone calls are the 'emergency in the middle of the night' type? Just because your cell phone is your security blanket doesnt mean its 'the whole point of telecommunication"

For you, the point of a phone might be to get alerted to rare but important emergencies. I'm not that important nor am I an emergency responder. I bought my phone so I could contact people when I needed to and so that my friends and family have a way to contact me.... not so they have a way to wake me up in the middle of the night.

There is nothing so important that I need to be woken up in the middle of the night for... and if it's that important, I'll most likely deal with it much better after a good sleep

How about just putting it into the trash? Why should the user be forced to proactively administer their phone against these kinds of suspicious activity at the expense of convenience and functionality? Seriously, putting your phone into airplane mode *every* time you think it's going to go into sleep mode?

This is a perfect example of the emperors clothes as it applies to Apple. Actually suggesting that someone put the phone in Airplane mode is crazy. Unless they are using it for an alarm clock, having the phone sit turned on with no passive functions possible, and no one to initiate an active function, Airplane mode is just an inefficient form of "OFF". Suggesting that someone turn their phone off every night so that they don't get charged

Actually suggesting that someone put the phone in Airplane mode is crazy

You're right, bur your conclusion is wrong. There's no reason for 99+% of people to even think about doing this. The suggestion was "if you're extremely worried about this", not "this is a big problem, people should be doing this".

Suggesting that someone turn their phone off every night so that they don't get charged exorbitant fees for some unknown, and certainly unneeded function

So far, you're the only person suggesting this. But you're right, it is a stupid suggestion.

Because Apple "Just Works". For varying values of "Just Works".

There is no other tech company on the planet whose products are both as powerful, as easy to use, and reliably work as Apple. So, yeah, "just works" is a valid description.

The Norwegian mobile operators have been forced to blacklist a certain US number as numerous iPhones has initiated call diversion to this number. As it lacks the international extension all the calls wound up at one unlucky guy in a small town.They confirm the issue, while Apple has refused to comment on it.

The iPad (even non-3G) and the Touch also have the ability to stay logged into a WiFi network in very low power mode and so can get push data over WiFi. And I can't imagine these were forced by AT&T.

Besides, what if you are in an AT&T dead zone (of course we all know these are mythical;) and you get a FaceTime(TM) call or try to Find My iPhone? Wouldn't you like it to get through on WiFi even though you can't get a push over 3G to your phone?

If you are on an unlimited plan already, I don't think AT&T is going to make you switch to the 2GB cap plan. The 2GB cap is only for new customers and customers who want to change plans (or phones).. At least *I think* that's how it works.

Turns out they don’t, it’s just a total of use from the entire day that accumulated a lot of tiny data transfers made by the iPhone’s system which are too numerous and trivial to itemize on the bill.

Do we know this? TFA presents that as a speculative explanation, but offers no evidence. All these Apple types are relying on what their telephone bill says -- which seems kinda naive, given that cellphone carriers are not exactly known for their truthfulness.

What we really need is an RF geek to set up some equipment to monitor an iPhone's overnight radio activity, and give us some hard data to consider.

You don’t need to be a RF geek with fancy equipment to put it in an improvised Faraday cage overnight and see if the phantom charges disappear. Just make sure it gets no signal, then shut it off so it doesn’t drain the battery trying to connect.

It's not a few bucks in my bill that I care. I worry about my phone sending out data surreptitiously in the middle of the night. What the hell is it sending?

I don't usually bash Apple users. As much as I don't like Apple's practices, and as much as I'd like to see everyone using Free Software, it beats using windows. But this time, this guys scared the fuck out of me. They catch their phone sneaking out data in the middle of the night, and none of them is truly worried about it. They are sort of wondering

According to the article it's not sending data in the middle of the night. It just appears that way on the phone bill because they add up all the push notifications for the day and list them as one transaction.

Asking such questions is silly. It will only make things harder. Just accept the word of Father Steve and relax. You'll find things are much nicer when you accept this. I did, and I'm happy all the time now.

Guess you didn't even read the summary, eh? Data's not being sent. The phone keeps track of the size of all small transfers that occurred during the day, adds them up, and tells AT&T the total overnight.

My bills (if I didn't get them electronically), are already 10+ double-sided pages long full of data transfers. I can't imagine how huge they'd be if they didn't do this, and it was filled with things like "120 bytes - 9:30am... 600 bytes... 9:31am."

That seems awfully fucking exploitable. You'd really think the provider would keep track of that shit, not your phone. Self-reporting usage? Just hack the phone and send false data, since I guess AT&T relies on what the phone tells it you've used.

And if AT&T does track your usage on their own, then having the phone report the usage is just wasteful.

That's what I was thinking. Looking at recent bills, it seems they no longer (or rarely) log data usage during the day. There's just one update that comes in overnight that seems to be the entire day's usage. Last month, I only had 7 days that logged any data usage during the day, and I can say with certainty that I use the 3G data line at least every 15 minutes.

People are reporting that if they turn their phones off overnight, the 1am-2am update doesn't occur until the phone gets turned back on in the m

That seems odd though, because you'd think such behaviour would have to be carrier-specific. I.e. AT&Ts systems would have to know to expect such updates from the iPhone and rely on the iPhone to monitor its usage.

But the iPhone in other countries is sold completely unlocked and you can whack any SIM card in it and use it on any network. The network doesn't know that you're connecting from an iPhone or any other 3G/HSDPA device. So the network wouldn't know to listen for these iPhone data updates (and would be keeping track of data usage on the network side like it would for any other device).

I don't own an iPhone, so this may be something completely obvious. But it sounds to me like the US iPhone software/firmware is different from the software run on non-US devices (i.e. there's a "AT&T-locked" version for the US which contains this data reporting feature, and a 'regular' version which does not, for use internationally)

There is carrier-specific baseband that runs on each device, so it could have something to do with that. However, over on MacRumors there are people reporting seeing this on carriers other than AT&T as well, such as O2.

It's somewhat baffling. These carriers can't be stupid enough to count on the devices reporting usage accurately, can they?

Makes sense. I clearly remember an amusing segment on the TV news here not long after the original iPhone was released. All those tiny little bits of data that the iPhone constantly connects to send/receive, combined with data charges still being a relatively rare/new thing as far as phone company billing software was concerned, literally led to people receiving itemised phone bills the size of books. Hundreds of pages:)

Billing software in phone companies has no doubt improved since then. But at the same t

IP connections will eventually timeout. If you want to be able to receive push notifications, you have to send a heartbeat message every once in a while to ensure that the connection is still alive. You can turn off push notifications if you prefer not to send anything to Apple.

I live in a fringe area. While I get a good number of bars with Edge, 3G is hit or miss. I work in town where 3G reception is good though so I usually keep 3G on. That said, I have noticed that some evenings my battery drains almost completely while just sitting on my dresser. It's not every night so I chalked it up to reception. However, this makes more sense if it's trying to transmit data with a crappy signal.

3G is about the biggest battery hog you'll get. Disable it and run on edge for a few days to compare (You'll also get better general reception and no dropped calls). If I had to upgrade my first-gen iPhone I'm pretty sure I'd disable 3G except when I was doing large data transfers (which I wouldn't do because of the new metered rates)

Telephony sessions are typically billed at the end of the session. Phone calls are billed when they are disconnected, SMS's when they are delivered, etc.

GPRS sessions (not individual sockets, the entire IP tunnel) are also typically billed when they are torn down too. This means that on some platforms data sessions can go unbilled for a long, long time. I've heard of months-long Blackberry sessions.

Now, the iPhone doesn't fully close down GPRS sessions when it goes idle, we saw that story a while ago. It does a fast disconnect, leaving the session running and hoping to reconnect to it later. What may be happening is that these sessions time out in the middle of the night, when the phone goes idle for long enough, resulting in a middle of the night charge for data from the entire day.

These long running sessions are being noticed by carriers, and they are starting to request mid-session commits, where the bill isn't updated at the end of the session, but at set intervals.

Stop with the pariah attitude. If you post tangentially related (at best) stuff about how you don't like Apple repeatedly, you'll get modded down, period. Add something to the discussion besides (hey, did you know Apple is still censoring apps!) and you might be treated differently.

Just because you want to say it a lot doesn't mean people want to hear it everywhere.

At least in the U.S., it's not like buyers don't know what's going on. Since locked phones are the NORM here, and AT&T doesn't bother to obfuscate or lie about the terms, iPhone buyers know or should know what they are getting into.

No exuses. If you're not smart enough to figure out what you're buying with an iPhone, you might want to reconsider buying one. The pariah attitude is, as noted, just wrong. Enjoy your iPhone and accept the terms and conditions you have accepted.

1. In the US you have very little choice in carrier. Lots of phones are exclusive to the carrier. You can not get a Droid on Sprint, and Evo on TMobile or a G1 on Verizon.2. Some people feel that having Apple as a gate keeper is a benifit. Many people feel that Atari failed and the Video game market crashed back in the 80s because of the influx of really bad games.3. All cell phone makers dictate what you can load on their phones. You can not put WinMo on a Samsung Moment.

Yes, Apple maintains control over the app store. But, generally it's intended (at least, in theory) to ensure that the user doesn't have a crappy experience. I have a new iPad, and from just the free apps that are available for download, it largely does everything I need it to do.

Heck, I seem to recall seeing an app which basically a stripped down browser that operated in safe mode, and chucked all of the data when it was done. So you had "private" browsing such as it is. One could surf porn using that if they so chose, but Apple doesn't want to sell or be associated with porn.

However, I'd point out that only just last week or so, Microsoft said they'd not be allowing porn on the Windows Mobile devices [geek.com], so it's not like Apple is doing anything different there. I'm betting that under most circumstances, most fortune 500 companies don't want to be associated with porn.

As to the products... between using my iPods (I have four accumulated over a decade), my iPad, and iTunes, I've come to appreciate the very integrated experience, it "just goes" -- your mileage may vary, but people using Apple products are actually kind of happy for the rubber-bumpers and safety rails. I'm acutely aware of the fact that they've covered up the sharp edges and made sure to put safeties in all of the outlets. But, I really enjoy it for that fact, and, IMO, it actually contributes to the overall experience. If I want to operate with complete freedom, I have Linux, FreeBSD, XP, and Vista boxes I'm free to do anything on I want.

As far as the whole carrier thing, I would go so far as to say that every cell phone I've ever owned has been tied to the carrier who sold it to me, and the exclusive deal Apple originally did with AT&T kept that business model going. I also understand they're going to start selling unlocked iPhones, so one could be unchained and not need to jailbreak.

I guess if you think your freedom is being restricted, their products aren't for you. If you actually feel like they've just set you up with good choices that work and do what you need, you don't see it that way. And, it's apparently a completely binary position from what I've seen lately on Slashdot. It doesn't seem to be possible for their to be a middle ground.

To me, I like their products because they strip out all of the fiddly bits and focus on what it is you want to do with them. Having my iPad controlled by my existing iTunes actually simplified things for me. Far more so than a netbook, which I think would both require more care and feeding, and still be beholden to the keyboard and mouse model. Checking my email in my backyard while playing iTunes and then going back to my e-book... well, that alone was worth the price of admission. Same goes for taking some documents I need to review away from my desk, and sitting in a comfy chair. I'd rather review a whole slew of technical stuff not sitting bolt upright in a chair, and not with a laptop sitting in my lap. This is more like a hardcopy.

And, really, for defending Apple, recent stuff shows me I'm more likely to get modded down than you are. On a lot of threads is seems mindless Apple bashing gets modded up, and actually trying to discuss the issue and defend Apple gets one modded as Troll. Because everyone has some pet crusade that, for them, makes any and all Appler products completely EVIL... and people seem unwilling to acknowledge the point that their point of view doesn't match that of the people who actually choose to use, and enjoy, Apple's stuff.

Depends if you think of the phone as a 'portable personal computing device', or really just 'an appliance'.

Like you, I couldn't stand anyone telling me what software I could or could not run on my personal computer (running Linux or Windows or whatever). It's a ~personal~ microcomputer which I should be able to make run any arbitrary code I desire to feed into it. I can even write my own software for it.

Some might also consider a phone to be the same - a completely open bit of personal hardware that they should be allowed to do with as they please.

OTOH I think a lot of people out there (not saying I'm one of them) consider a phone as merely an appliance. They buy it in the knowledge that its not an 'open' device you can do what you want with. But they don't care. I mean... they don't really care that I can't run arbitrary code on their DVD player or their microwave or their car stereo system or whatever. And they think of a phone as being in the same class of device - they just want it to work and don't have a desire to do anything more fancy with it.

Apple has been successful selling such locked down products to that kind of consumer. You (and I) disagree with that approach, but there are good alternatives out there, so there's no real reason to get worked up about it. If I don't like it, I won't buy it.

The 'locked to a carrier' thing is also strictly a US thing. In my country (and most others) you can just whack any old SIM card in an iPhone and it will work on any network like any other phone. I should also point out that Apple's actual ~computers~ (i.e. Mac OS X running laptops and desktops) are still open platform 'personal computers'... indeed these days you can even run Windows or Linux on them). So I don't think the lock-ins pervade every product they sell. Just the iPad/iPhone/iPod/etc.

But you're right - you shouldn't be modded as troll for discussing these things. They are legitimate concerns with Apple's products. But I just think that you are not Apple's target market - you want a computer when they are really just trying to sell an appliance.

Speak up against Apple and be modded Troll or Flamebait. Happened to me yesterday when I questioned Apple's practices.

From what I've seen, that work both ways.

Neither side is actually evaluating the arguments of either -- they're just completely polarized and frothing at the mouth. As a result, people are modding up/down any post which supports/contradicts their own position. That includes the pro-Apple and anti-Apple crowds.

It isn't. S/he might mean 1$/MB. Even then, most iPhones are on large data plans that include hundreds of MB per month. I know people here that use 3G for their home internet connection - and you wouldn't do that if it cost $1/second!

I don't understand this story at all. Part of it seems to be implying this is just an accounting thing...your phone isn't actually sending data then, the bill is just reporting the tiny amount of push transfers it did during the day as a single instance at night. (Otherwise, you'd have hundreds of '20 byte' listings during the day as the phone asks 'New data?' and the other end says 'Nope'.)

That seems reasonable, but then another part of the article seems to imply this is real, because it's using 3g 'durin

Fact 1: The bills don't seem to add up for everbody, but the total usage portions of the bill sound about right.

Fact 2: At least one users in airplane mode/off mode the charges will not show up until the phone is turned on.

Fact 3: The GSM-series 3G data technology is packet based, not connection based, so a fully itemized bill would list every packet. The other options for the phone company is to attempt to group collections of packets as pseudo-connections (which is not ideal), or itemize by day (or hour,

The phone bill for my Windows Mobile shows the same thing. It adds up all my data usage for the day, and shows it on the bill at midnight. Activesync operates on my phone between 8am and 11:59pm, so it might be in some way related to that, or maybe it is just the way Telefonica does it.

Are you sure? I am positive the actual total data line item you are actually charged for is done on the carrier's end. To do anything else is idiotic.

However, it is entirely possible that the individual line items on the bill are as reported by the phone. That would explain why the time is variable, why some were reporting the numbers don't add up, and what at least one macrumors user reported: the line item does not show up if the phone is in airline mode or off, but does show up at the time the phone is t

No. What I was proposing was that the billing system track actual usage. You pay exactly what you used.

However the data line items in the bill have nothing to do with what you are charged. They are just a listing of what your phone reported. So your phone could report an Exabyte of usage but you used only 1 Gig, so you don't pay any overage.

Or you use 3 gigs, but the phone reported only a meg of usage. So the only data usage line would be for 1 MB, but the total data line would read 3GB, and you would be ch

The way I'm reading this makes it seem like they buried the lead. The iPhones are using 3G bandwidth overnight to report on how much 3G bandwidth they used during the day? That's stupid! That's stupid like 8 different ways.

If they were it would be.

Instead it's a matter of when data usage is reported on your bill - nothing more.

If they become pure data machines then the data will become the primary revenue source and voice will be subsidized by it. Put the cost of operating the network on the data plans and data plans will suddenly no longer be the 'cheap' way to communicate.

I've had both the 3G and 3GS and have never had an issue with "forced" upgrades... iTunes doesn't even force upgrades on me it asks me if I want to upgrade, I say no. problem solved.
You sure your phone just wasn't buggy?